“I’m not afraid,” I said, although I wasn’t sure that was exactly true. I wasn’t so much afraid of his driving as of Yves and Élise conspiring to kill me and leave me in a snowy ditch somewhere between the village and Nuits-Saint-Georges.
As it turned out, my instincts were wrong. From the moment Yves spun the family car out of the gates of the property, he drove at an insane speed along roads that were basically sheets of ice. Silence reigned in the car, but I was already sweating with fear by the time we exited the village. The car slipped and slid all over the road, yet Yves did not slow down one iota.
When we were halfway to Nuits, I snapped. “Stop being such a fucking idiot!” I silently thanked Thibaut for teaching me the full lexicon of French swear words and how to employ them properly. “You’ve both made it abundantly clear that you want me dead, but unless you slow down you’re going to get all of us killed.”
Yves did slow down, almost stopped in fact. He and Élise turned to me in shock. “You just swore…” Élise said, sounding mystified. What did they think I was? A mute? A robot with no feelings? Just because I had been polite until then, despite their appalling behavior, didn’t mean I had no backbone.
“Yes, I did,” I said. “I get the message that neither of you like me or want me to be staying at your house. Trust me, the way you guys have been acting, I don’t want to be staying at your house either. Still, your parents want me to stay, so I have no choice. We don’t have to like each other. We don’t even have to talk to each other more than absolutely necessary, but we do have to live in the same house for the next two months.”
“We don’t want you coming to Scouts with us,” Élise said.
“Do you seriously think I want to be going to a Scouts meeting with you?” I asked. “For fuck’s sake, I would rather pull out my own fingernails. Still, unlike you, I was well brought up, and while I am a fucking guest in your home, I will fucking-well try to make your parents happy.”
“Where did you learn to swear like that?” Yves asked, now completely stopped and staring over his shoulder at me. He sounded impressed, despite himself.
“A friend at school,” I said. “A big, burly friend who is very protective of me. I have many of those. Also, I know how to shoot and I have excellent aim. I hunt moose back in Canada, you know.”
All of that was either an exaggeration or an outright lie, but now that the gloves were off I wasn’t feeling particularly reasonable. Instilling a little bit of fear in them would be a good thing, I decided. Or perhaps that was the wine talking.
“My parents like you more than they like me!” Élise burst out.
“Can you blame them? All you do is walk around with that sour look on your face, pouting and crying and being mad at everyone. Rest assured though, I have two perfectly wonderful parents of my own. Your parents have been kind to me, but I’m not looking for any more. Two is plenty.”
Yves burst out in a strange honking sound that took me several seconds to recognize as laughter. “Isn’t that the truth!” he gasped.
Élise didn’t laugh, but I could see from her profile that she was fighting a smile. “Oui,” she agreed, finally. “Two is plenty.”
Nobody apologized, but I sat back in my seat and looked out the window to the white landscape outside, conscious of a perceptible lifting of the atmosphere. My head was still spinning and I felt slightly nauseous.
We pulled into the parking lot of a nondescript utilitarian building on the outskirts of Nuits-Saint-Georges. I briefly debated walking to the Beaupres to drop by and say bonjour in lieu of attending the Scouts meeting, but then I thought better of it. I was feeling on the verge of tears as it was. I didn’t want to make them feel guilty about a situation that was mine alone to handle. They had done enough for me. I wanted them to think my stay at the Girards was trucking along happily.
We went into the room that was cold enough for me to see my own breath. I opted to keep my coat on. About five other kids, all probably my age or a year or two younger, were milling around wearing identical blue shirts and lanyard-tied scarves.
Élise made unenthusiastic introductions, but at least she was acknowledging my presence. That, I decided, as I tried not to sway, was progress of a sort.
The kids came forward and gave me les bises, some more enthusiastically than others. The last boy had a friendly face and brown hair in messy loose curls. His kiss was a bit wet, but he was definitely the most welcoming of the bunch.
“How do you like Burgundy?” he asked.
“Wonderful,” I said.
“And living with the Girards?”
The boy and I were now standing alone, as the others had moved off to the far corner of the room where a table was set up with a bunch of photos laid on top.
“Interesting,” I said.
“Élise has a personality that is not always easy,” he said, cocking a brow.
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
He bit his lip to stop himself from laughing. “My name is Félix. Come, let’s sit down and chat for a bit.” He motioned to a beat-up, old couch that was positioned against the far wall of the room.
I shrugged. “All right.”
“So you must be used to all this snow,” he began as we sat down. “This must be nothing compared to Canada.”
I went on with the usual explanation about how the part of Canada I was from actually had a very temperate climate and how it was actually milder back home than in Burgundy. I swear, all French people thought Canada was basically like Santa’s village at the North Pole.
He nodded and smiled, but I wasn’t sure if he actually believed me.
“Where do you live?” I asked. “Here in Nuits-Saint-Georges?”
He shook his head. “God no. I’m from a little village up in the hills. You’ve probably never heard of it.”
“Try me.”
“Villers-la-Faye.”
I laughed. This reminded me of the almost identical exchange I’d had with Sandrine a couple of months earlier.
“What?” he asked.
“I’ve heard of it,” I said, wrapping my coat tighter around myself. It wasn’t getting any warmer in there. “In fact, I ate snails for the first time in Villers-la-Faye—at la Maison des Hautes-Côtes.”
“Non!”
“Yes. They were delicious too. Also, one of my best friends at school is Sandrine Bissette. She lives in Villers-la-Faye. Do you know her?”
Félix guffawed. “Sort of…she’s my cousin. Bissette is my last name too.”
“Really?”
“Well, it’s the last name of over half the people who live in Villers-la-Faye, so that’s no big surprise.”
“I have another friend from Villers,” I said. “I don’t think she’s your cousin.”
“Who?”
“Stéphanie Germain. Do you know her?”
“Of course! Our house is right across the lane from theirs. La Stéph and I go to school together. Do you know Franck?”
“Her brother? No. He’s in Dijon, apparently, doing something for his military service. Stéphanie keeps saying I should meet him though.” Why did everyone keep bringing up this Franck person?
“I don’t know about that,” Félix said, wiggling his eyebrows comically. “Franck is a good guy, but I think I’d rather keep you to myself.”
I laughed. His flirting, unlike Bruno’s, didn’t feel like it had any seriousness to it at all. Rather, it was more like Félix flirted simply as a way to be polite and to make me feel good.
“Did you know I’m having a New Year’s party at my house?”
I shook my head. “Élise somehow managed to neglect mentioning that to me. Quelle surprise.”
He reached over and squeezed my hand. “Well, you’re invited. I will be mortally wounded if you don’t come.”
I had been holding out on a secret hope that maybe Sandrine would ask me to do something with her gang for New Year’s, but that hadn’t happened yet. Anyway, I liked Félix. He was warm and e
ngaging and…what was there not to like? He was certainly no one I would ever be attracted to, but he would make a great friend.
“I’d be honored,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Maybe Sandrine and Stéph and Franck will come by too,” he added.
“That would be fantastic,” I said. I hoped they would. That would show Élise and Yves once and for all that I didn’t need them and their stupid Scouts friends, except perhaps Félix.
CHAPTER 19
It was my first Christmas away from home. I dreaded calling my family on Christmas Day, as I was certain hearing the cacophony as they prepared the family turkey dinner would make me feel homesick and teary. It was a good thing long distance phone calls were so expensive, because I knew drawing my call out would be torturous. The day before Christmas, I was invited to the Beaupres, where Mamy was staying over the holidays, and Julien and his older brother, Antoine, were as well.
We had a proper French Christmas meal—foie gras and sauternes wine, a roasted goose with the most delectable stuffing made of chestnuts, an enormous cheese platter, bûche de Noël—which was a massive improvement on the dried fruit-filled fruitcake and plum pudding at home that I had always despised—clementine oranges, and brightly wrapped individual chocolates called papillottes with the café.
All of that was washed down by Henri’s fine wine purchased during our bicycle winetasting excursion to Vosne-Romanée in the fall.
We exchanged gifts, and I soaked up every last ounce of the family’s uncomplicated warmth and affection.
It was odd how easy it was for me to choose gifts for the Beaupres compared to choosing them for the Girards. I had only stayed with the Beaupres for three months, but they felt like family. I picked out a leather key chain for Julien from a chic store he liked in Dijon, a book on Ferraris for Monsieur Beaupre, a blue silk scarf that would set off her lovely eyes for Madame Beaupre, and a set of floral linen tablemats and napkins for Mamy.
Madame Beaupre and I laughed as I opened my gift from her—a stunning Hermès scarf of my own—one that I had admired when we were in Paris. I was so relieved that I had forced myself to eat that pig’s foot. That way our memories of Paris remained unblemished.
The meal took about seven hours, and when I put on my jacket, Julien leaned over and whispered to me. “We wanted this to be your true Christmas,” he said. “With us. That way no matter what happens tomorrow you will have had a true French Christmas with your true French family.” Our eyes were all swimming by the time I kissed them all once, then a second time, and finally climbed into the car beside Monsieur Beaupre to head back to Noiron.
In the car, my eyes filled with tears again at the thought of returning to Noiron, but at the same time I felt bad for the Girards. Monsieur and Madame Girard were not the Beaupres, to be sure, but they were truly kind and attentive. It was hardly their fault that their children were the way they were. Well, maybe it was a bit their fault, but the lottery of genetics was probably largely to blame.
In the end, Christmas at the Girards was much better than I had anticipated. I tried to phone my parents several times, but the circuits were always busy. Part of me was disappointed, but the other part of me was relieved to avoid a trigger that I knew would leave me feeling homesick. While Élise and Yves didn’t seem to like me any better, they did appear to accept my presence in the house as a necessary evil.
Madame Girard’s mother, the eagle-eyed octogenarian, sat beside me, and we had a delightful conversation about life during the Nazi occupation.
“The worst was the curfews,” she said. “I was young, like you are now. When you are that age, nature doesn’t intend you to go to bed early. It wants you to dance and sing and talk and kiss boys…” She cocked a knowing eyebrow. “Like I found you doing during les vendanges with that Swiss boy.”
I popped another one of her delicious homemade escargots into my mouth. “About that—” I began.
She patted my hand with her claw-like hand and chuckled. “If you weren’t doing that at your age, I would worry something was wrong. It is la vie. C’est comme ça! Do you like my escargots?”
“I love them,” I said. “I never in my life thought that one of my favorite foods would be snails.”
She smiled. “You know where we all met after curfew during the war?”
“Where?”
“The wine cellars. They were perfect. Deep underground—always the same temperature—and no light or sound made its way outside to the Nazis. Getting in and out without being noticed was another paire de manches; but I tell you that many couples met in the wine cellars during the war, and many babies were conceived there too.”
I widened my eyes.
“What do you think about Élise?” she asked. I scrambled to keep up with her conversational pace. “Do you think she will ever find a man?”
My Canadian diplomacy asserted itself. “Of course. Perhaps when she is a bit older though—”
Madame Girard’s mother made a sound of derision. “She’ll have to wipe that scowl off her face before she does. I don’t know where she got that personality from.” She chewed thoughtfully on an escargot. “Probably from me, actually. I always had a bad caractère too, come to think of it. My mother, who was sweet like my daughter, despaired of me. I guess it skips a generation.”
My maternal grandmother was also a bit of a rebel—marrying a man twenty years older despite her parent’s vehement opposition and resolutely refusing to act ladylike, much to her mother’s despair. Part of me wished that I could be as unconcerned with other people’s opinions as her, and that it had skipped a generation in my family too.
“I’m sure it will hold Élise in good stead later on in life,” I said.
She shrugged, non-committal. “Perhaps.”
The week between Christmas and New Year’s passed slowly. Sandrine had gone skiing with her family, but I told her I would be at her cousin’s house for New Year’s.
“That’s too bad,” she said over the phone. “I was going to ask you to celebrate New Year’s with us. Do you think you can get out of it?”
I bit my lip. I wanted to, but then I thought of Félix’s kindness to me at that horrific Scouts meeting. “I promised your cousin I would go.”
“Things like that are important to Félix,” Sandrine said. “He’s always been the sentimental sort. It’s too bad, because Stéphanie’s brother Franck overheard us talking about you and he is dying to meet you.”
I was getting sick of hearing Sandrine and everyone from Villers-la-Faye gush on about Stéphanie’s brother. I got the distinct feeling that Sandrine and Stéphanie were trying to set me up with him, and it wounded my pride to think I was a sad enough case to necessitate a blind date. I had never had to resort to a blind date in my life and wasn’t about to start. Also, hadn’t they figured out that a surefire way to make me disinterested in this Franck was to tell me constantly that I needed to meet him?
“Maybe you and I can see each other at Félix’s for New Year’s,” I said and extracted a promise from her to try to drop by.
New Year’s rolled around and Madame Girard filled our arms with wine bottles to take to Félix’s party. She also packed two bags full of gougères to heat up and about two hundred frozen escargots.
Félix’s house was situated in a small alley just down from the gate where I had seen the young people hanging out on my way to la Maison des Hautes-Côtes. That warm summer evening seemed like years ago. Now, gusts of icy winds that felt like they came straight off the Siberian tundra blew dry snow around. We all hunched over against the cold as we hurried towards the front door.
He welcomed us with delight, divested us of our coats, and before we had even caught our breath, he pressed glasses of kir in our hands. He was, I could tell immediately, the consummate host. The house was decorated in what I was beginning to think of as “Burgundian winemaker style.” A lot of dark stained wood, flashes of deep scarlet, mustard yellow, and a profusion of decorative items and furniture
made from both gnarled old grapevines and wine barrels.
“Sandrine said she might drop by,” I said to Félix.
“She told me,” he said. “We had a family lunch yesterday.” He rolled his eyes. “Nine hours long. She had to excuse herself for a lot of cigarettes, so I went with her to keep her company. We talked about you.”
“Oh?”
“Good things.” He pinched my cheek in the same manner as Sophie’s Mamy had done so many times. “Only good things.”
He ushered us downstairs into the cuverie. I had already deduced that Félix came from a winemaking family, but this confirmed it.
The amount of food was incredible—patés and salads of every description, as well as bowls of chips and gougères and little cheese feuilletés. The wine flowed. I couldn’t keep track of whether it was Félix’s family’s wine or the Girard’s or indeed the wine of any of the thirty or so people milling around, many from winemaking families, but it didn’t matter. By the time I drank two kirs and a glass of wine, I had warmed up nicely and was enjoying a lively conversation with a girl who was not a Scout either. She reassured me that, in fact, the majority of Félix’s friends were not.
“We all tease him mercilessly about the Scouts thing,” she said. “But he takes it in stride. He always does. He’s the most good-humored person I’ve ever met in my life.”
As the evening went on, several raclette machines were pulled out. Raclette was a favored winter dish in France named somewhat unoriginally after the cheese that took center stage. I had already tasted this delicacy—loads of different charcuterie, boiled potatoes, and cornichons; and all of this with melted raclette cheese poured over it—at the Beaupres. It was the perfect meal for a cold night, and “conviviale” as the French say, with everyone mixing up their little trays of cheese.
Félix sat beside me and at one point, slung his arm across my shoulders. I didn’t interpret this as anything more than friendly. It just seemed a normal part of his personality. After the raclette machines had been tidied up, Félix and his mother brought down a mind-blowing selection of tarts and cakes for a dessert buffet. Félix and I crossed paths as I was heading up to the bathroom and he was coming down with the last two fruit tarts.
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